Jak kino czechosłowackie detonowało bombę atomową, czyli o czym opowiada film Jindřicha Poláka Jutro wstanę rano i oparzę się herbatą (1977)

Abstract

Jindřich Polák’s film Tomorrow I’ll Wake Up and Scald Myself with Tea (Zítra vstanu a opařím se Cajeme) of 1977 is neither the first nor the last attempt to “detonate” an atomic bomb by the Czech filmmakers. However, this science fiction comedy uses the Wells’s concept of time travel to entertain a viewer with what the contemporary discourse calls the counterfactual history or simply considerations on “what if...”. The film was made in the peak period of normalization, thus all the historiosophical, ideological or political allusions are deeply hidden. Despite the futuristic context, diegesis is recognizable and contemporary at the same time, and thus full of ambiguous motivations of characters. The atomic bomb, therefore, is not merely a decorative artifact around which the main characters move.